Prof Andreas Melzer, University of Dundee“Robotics for Image Guided Therapy and FUS”

Dr Francesco Setti, University of Verona“Embodied AI in robotic surgery: challenges and opportunities”

14.50 – 15.30 Round table

On the future of AI+Robotics (Hospital of the future) and on the health care topic group.Chairman: Prof Paolo Fiorini

European Robotics Forum 2020

The European Robotics Forum (ERF), the most influential meeting of the robotics community in Europe, will be held in Malaga, Spain, on 3-5 March 2020, at theTrade Fairs and Congress Center of Malaga (FYCMA). Over 1000 European robotics top experts are expected to attend the 11th edition of the conference.

ERF2020 will host a major exhibition where companies, universities and research institutes showcase the most advanced European prototypes, products, services and projects funded under EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme.

With over 50 workshops highlighting the newest robotics research, the event will offer a unique window to the latest developments on the European markets.

Legged robots are mainly designed to traverse unstructured environments where wheeled robots have limited mobility. Their applications range from nuclear decommissioning to mining, search and rescue, inspection and surveillance. In addition, they can be applied to flank human workers (or collaborate with them) in order to reduce labor accidents, as well as in elderly care. The next generation of legged robots are envisioned to operate either autonomously or semi-autonomously (through tele-operation) over uneven terrains. This requires the rejection and compensation of disturbances, the exploitation of visual feedback, and the ability to manipulate both fragile and heavy objects. The main ingredients for legged locomotion are planning, control, perception and state estimation. Numerical optimization is a promising tool for motion planning and control for legged robotic systems in complex geometry environments (e.g. multi-contact scenarios) because it enables to push the machine up to the performance limits.

Indeed, when the complexity of the terrain increases, or when the execution of the requested task involves highly dynamic motions, numerical optimization and machine learning strategies are needed to automatically find feasible trajectories and control actions that could not otherwise be determined. In this seminar I will mainly focus on the planning aspects and on different strategies to achieve effective locomotion across complex terrain.

BIO

Michele Focchi is currently a Researcher at the DLS team in IIT. He received both the Bsc. and the Msc. in Control System Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. After gaining some R&D experience in the industry, in 2009 he joined IIT where he developed a micro-turbine for which he obtained an international patent and a prize.In 2013, he got a PhD in robotics, getting involved in the Hydraulically Actuated Quadruped Robot (HyQ) project.He initially was developing torque controllers for locomotion purposes, subsequently he moved to higher level (whole-body) controllers and model identification. He was also investigating locomotion strategies that are robust to uncertainties and work reliably on the real platform. Currently his research interests are focused on pushing the performances of quadruped robots in traversing unstructured environments, by using optimization-based planning strategies to perform dynamic motion planning.

European Robotics Week 2019 at the CS Department

The Computer Science Department celebrates European Robotics Week 2019 with a calendar of events for students, families, and enthusiasts of new technologies. Two days of events that will take place inside and outside the University environment, in collaboration with local institutions and schools from the Verona area.

A unique opportunity to get in touch with different types of robots and intelligent robotic systems and understand how these technologies are present in everyday life and within university research, accompanied by experts in the field.

Robot @Garda ed. 3

Garda Town Hall (VR) – Lungo Lago Regina Adelaide 15, 37016 Garda VR

Third edition of the informative meeting on the use of robotics and artificial intelligence in different contexts of high social value, including water monitoring and surgical robotics. Event in collaboration with the Italian Naval League section of Garda.

During the day it will be possible to be direct spectators of demonstrations with intelligent aquatic drones for water quality monitoring (European Project INTCATCH), flying drones and advanced robotic systems used in operational activities by the State Police.

Robotics and new technologies enthusiasts will be led by researchers from the ALTAIR Lab to discover the main research areas of the Laboratory: surgical robotics, collaborative robots for industry 4.0, rehabilitation robots. During the visit it will also be possible to watch live demonstrations of the robots currently in use in the Laboratory.

The ALTAIR robotics laboratory is an Italian center of excellence in the research and development of advanced and unconventional robotics systems, from teleoperation to autonomous behavior, founded in 2001 by Paolo Fiorini, professor of computer science, within the Computer Science Department of University of Verona. Over the years ALTAIR has been awarded several Italian and European grants developing a wide knowledge in the field of robotic surgery. In the last years with the coming of Industry 4.0 and the introduction of robots within companies, the laboratory has opened its research to cooperative robots for industry, human-machine interaction and artificial intelligence.

Italian and French research meet in Verona in a workshop about the next generation intelligent surgical systems.

On Wednesday 13rd November ALTAIR Robotics Laboratory based in the CS Department of University of Verona organizes a workshop on the role of biomechanical simulation in robotics for the development of next-generation surgical systems, entitled “Next generation intelligent surgical systems: computer simulation meets robotics“.

The workshop is aimed at PhD students, post-docs and researchers with interest in the fields of biomechanical simulation and robotics and will open with a talk by Prof. Paolo Fiorini, Director of the ALTAIR Laboratory.

Special guest is Prof. Stéphane Cotin, Director of the MIMESIS group, part of the prestigious INRIA – French research institute for digital sciences, and one of the creators of the SOFA project, an open-source framework for advanced simulation in the medical field.

Introduction

Nowadays the use of simulation in the surgical field is increasing and is becoming important both for the training of surgeons and for the planning of an intervention. Through the simulation it is possible to represent and reproduce complex anatomical responses to various stimuli for a specific patient, thus making it possible, for example, to predict the effects of some therapies and prevent potentially critical situations.

In robotic surgery, the realistic simulation of the behavior of the various organs, which represent the working environment of the robot, is of great importance for the development and validation of autonomous systems.

The ALTAIR Robotics Laboratory has a strong experience in the field of simulation applied to robotics, which has also led over time to the creation of spin-offs and the marketing of simulators for surgical training.

An Italo-French union

The workshop is funded within the Cassini Program which aims to create a scientific network between French universities and research centers; it also benefits from the support of the French Embassy in Italy and the Institut Français.

The organization was made possible thanks to the contribution of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona and the European research projects ARS project and SARAS project, currently in charge of the ALTAIR Laboratory.

Workshop: Towards Robotic Autonomy in Surgery

On June 23rd 2019 we had the pleasure to participate to the annual Hamlyn Symposium on Robotics 2019, at the Royal Geographical Society, London and organizing the workshop “Towards Robotic Autonomy in Surgery” sponsored by the University of Verona.Workshop co-Chairs and Organisers: Paolo Fiorini, Riccardo Muradore, Francesco Setti.

The Hamlyn Symposium was also the occasion to show the audience our research with paper and poster presentations.

Connect

This site and any third-party tools used by this site use cookies that are necessary for its operation and that are useful for the purposes outlined in the cookie policy. By closing this banner, you consent to the use of cookies. To learn more or opt out of some or all cookies, please see the cookie policy.OkPrivacy policy